Carson brings five years of development experience to Mount Tamalpais College. She previously worked as the Development Coordinator at At The Crossroads, and prior to that as the Intake Assistant at the New England Innocence Project. She is passionate about permanent criminal justice reform and ensuring every person has access to high-quality higher education. She graduated from Northeastern University with a BS in Criminal Justice and Political Science. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, reading, and finding the best nachos in the Bay Area.

Bekki has dedicated her career to supporting organizations that work to benefit marginalized communities. She hopes to bring the best of her experience to her work for MTC’s students.

Volker Kirchharz received a business degree from a professional academy in  Germany and started working with non-profit organizations until he moved to the US over 20 years ago. He continued his work in non-profit administration and finance with a variety of human and social service agencies, mainly in the  Bay Area. Most recently he was the school administrator for a German Saturday school, responsible for the entire operation of the school. He enjoys working in teams and likes to apply his experience to strengthen organizational structures.

Richard “Bonaru” Richardson is a Mount Tamalpais College graduate and Communications Associate. He has played a key role as Executive Editor of the San Quentin News and has contributed to its growth since 2008.

Amy Shea has a PhD and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow, where she has written a collection of essays titled, Not All Deaths are Created Equal. Her work has appeared in the Portland Review, The Massachusetts Review, Spry Literary Journal, Fat City Review, From Glasgow to Saturn, & the Journal of Sociology of Health & Illness. As an avid hiker, she likens her doctoral experience to that of her climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro – both immensely challenging and rewarding.

Mauricio brings more than 13 years of experience in leadership and higher education in Chile and the US. Before joining Mount Tamalpais College, he worked in community colleges serving economic and academically underserved students. He received his BS from the Pontific Catholic University in Chile and holds a Master’s degree in Organization and Leadership from the University of San Francisco.

Kirsten is a former philosophy instructor and tutor at Mount Tamalpais College, where she co-taught her first course in 2011. She served as the college’s first Accreditation Liaison Officer in its successful candidacy application in 2019. As the Research and Program Fellow, Kirsten supports college staff as they restart in-person courses, and carries out research projects aimed at strengthening the field of higher education in prisons. Outside her work for Mount Tam, Kirsten is a co-founder of Mourning Our Losses, a national memorialization project to remember people who have passed away behind bars during the COVID-19 pandemic. She enjoys thinking about ethics and political philosophy, watching movies, and reading mystery novels.

Jen brings a unique blend of community research and higher education institutional research experience to Mount Tamalpais College. She began her career in Michigan, where she earned her PhD in Community Psychology with concentrations in evaluation research and statistics and methodology. While in graduate school, she was the research director for a statewide nonprofit focused on criminal and juvenile justice reform. She has focused her career on research, evaluation, and participatory action research to create healthier and more equitable communities. Before joining the staff at Mount Tamalpais College, she was the Director of Institutional Research at California College of the Arts for five years. She served on the American Public Health Association’s Book Publications Board for eight years and often speaks at conferences and writes about community driven change efforts.

Jacob joined the staff at Mount Tamalpais College after working for nearly ten years serving students and staff in higher education. Through his work as an educator and manager of student systems and records, he has developed a keen devotion to student needs and well-being. He is dedicated to serving marginalized students, especially in the creation of policies and procedures, so he is thrilled to contribute to the Mount Tamalpais College team in their mission. He holds an interdisciplinary BA focused on ethics and leadership from California State University, Monterey Bay.